O/T:- ⚠️Impressed with the leadership [The UK Party Politics Thread]

[sidders]

Will be interesting to see if Mac Donald and the rest turn up on Tuesday to the ‘Labour Friends of Palestine’ event at the Labour conference.

Being 'a friend of Palestine' doesn't impute one's approval of Hamas. They are a terrorist organisation with evil aims, but let's face it Israeli behaviour of recent years, now compounded by the election of the evil Netanyahu, has asked for trouble.
Over 7,000 Palestinians have been murdered in the past 10 years compared with just over 300 Israelis.

[JoePass]

Being 'a friend of Palestine' doesn't impute one's approval of Hamas. They are a terrorist organisation with evil aims, but let's face it Israeli behaviour of recent years, now compounded by the election of the evil Netanyahu, has asked for trouble.
Over 7,000 Palestinians have been murdered in the past 10 years compared with just over 300 Israelis.

The terrorists apologist, what a surprise coming from the uneducated left wing of the Liebour party. You call Netanyahu evil, that has to be the biggest laugh for months, you moron.

[magpie_mania]

The terrorists apologist, what a surprise coming from the uneducated left wing of the Liebour party. You call Netanyahu evil, that has to be the biggest laugh for months, you moron.

Calls someone uneducated, then resorts to calling him a moron.

Not sure who is the uneducated one there!

Palestinians and Hammas are not one and the same thing.

[Newish Pie]

So, you want to forego the right for the police to have to investigate things properly, or the right to life, or the right not to be tortured, or the right not to be exploited at work, or the right your freedom (i.e. you can't be imprisioned just because - Habeous Corpus basically), or the right to a fair trial?There are another 13 articles some quite technical. We wrote the damned thing, we had, until this government, the fewest cases lost amongst all the signatories. They are basic rights.

The trouble with leaving the ECHR is that it breaks several other international treaties like the Good Friday Agreement. So it would be just like BREXIT all over again... but with more direct consequences for us as it doesn't apply to just immigrants. Several high profile cases, John Worboys (the taxi rapist) were brought under the auspices of the ECHR (the police failed to conduct a proper investigation).

You can't replace the ECHR with our own version that doesn't have the same rights without removing those rights from all of us.

This is a great post. Whenever I come across anyone who disparages the ECHR or the Convention, I ask exactly which article(s) in the Convention they disagree with. And I've yet to receive a proper answer. Rather, what's usually going on is that opponents don't think everyone deserves the same basic rights that people like them deserve. So it's not a problem with the Convention, but with the idea of basic, universal human rights. And often that's motivated by something pretty nasty.

To be fair, some people have just been misled by a constant stream of tabloid news reports about preposterous-sounding legal claims based on rights in the convention. These reports are often inaccurate or partial, either omitting key details or burying them at the end of the article, or they're reports about claims which will be unsuccessful. Which will never be reported.

[Newish Pie]

One thing Brexit has done for sure is to show us who the arrogant, patronising, pedantic, non patriotic people are in this country, I think Remainers have to agree with that.

Well, let's take that seriously as a view. Although in doing so, I'll probably be accused of being both patronising and pedantic.

Let's take "arrogant" and "patronising" together. There's a good argument to be made for this, since the Remain campaign was half-hearted and complacent at best. However, I think one of the mistakes it made was failing to properly articulate a lot of the benefits of the current arrangements which the campaigners thought people knew about. So... visa-free travel around Europe, including tourism. The right to live and work in other countries. Just how integrated our trade and economies are. Was taking this knowledge for granted arrogant and patronising, or was the mistake in assuming too much knowledge? The campaign certainly suffered from the involvement of Cameron and the half-hearted involvement of Corbyn.

"Pedantic" is an interesting one. And again, I think this is true. But then... international trade and international law require, by their very nature, detailed and precise thinking. It's done on pedantry, not on vibes or riffs or patriotism or three word slogans.

Brexiters complaining about Leavers being "pedantic" is just telling on themselves - about their own lack of detailed plans and detailed understanding. And frustration at having that pointed out. Throughout the negotiations, it's been pretty clear that the Leavers don't have a full grasp of the details or properly understood the consequences of what they were negotiating. There's that picture of Frost with no notes talking to counterparts who are properly prepared that really illustrate the point. And then we get the appeals for everyone to "come together" and "make Brexit work" which is essentially saying... we don't have a clue what we're doing, please could those who do who warned us against this folly do it for us?

"Patriotic"... others have commented on this already. And I'm starting to think this is the real dividing line. Some Leavers are what we can kindly call English/British Exceptionalists - they think that there's something different and special and better and the UK and about British people more generally compared to people from other countries, who are lesser. An unkind person might call this "racism" or "white supremacism".

Sometimes it's exactly that, but often it's more complicated than that. Some people think that there's something in British culture and history and institutions that leads to that superiority, not ethnicity. This belief leads to the view that a team of British trade negotiators not only could but would do better than a joint team of EU negotiators. It's the same view that leads to the view that England/Britain should churn out winning sporting teams on a much more regular basis than we do. Internationally, America excels at this kind of Exceptionalism, and France and the UK aren't that far behind.

Remainers, on the other hand.... they tend to think that the UK is just one country among many. That it has strengths and weaknesses, like other countries, and that sometimes we're better, and sometimes we're worse. They tend to think we've got things to learn from how other countries do things, as well as examples that other countries could learn from. They're proud of some aspects of British history but ashamed of others. Theirs is a much more nuanced patriotism that rejects "my country right or wrong" or supremacist versions of patriotism.

Or, as Elite said:
How is it arrogant, patronising, pedantic and non-patriotic to want the best for your country and the people who live in it?

But I think for some Leavers, that doesn't count as patriotic, because they define patriotism as British Exceptionalism.

[Magpies1959]

Wow Newish Pie, I think you are so wide of the mark with you ideas about people who voted to leave. I have not met one that fills your criteria.
Remainers seem determined to paint Leavers as ignorant racists, which sticks in the craw, and stems from afore mentioned arrogance and patronising attitude.
I guess the other EU countries have nothing to be ashamed about in their histories.
I wonder what you think of countries such as Hungary and Poland which are far more nationalistic than ourselves, and are far more unified as countries than we have been for a good while, due in the main to strict immigration policies.
I struggle to see what is so good about multiculturism, and what is so bad about nationalism. A sense of nationalism, does not make you racist. To me it makes sense that people of different cultures in one country are less likely to be harmonious.
We as Britons have every right to be proud of what we have achieved, even if it is the flavour of the month with elitists/luvvies to try and tear our country apart.

[Elite_Pie]

I struggle to see what is so good about multiculturism, and what is so bad about nationalism. A sense of nationalism, does not make you racist. To me it makes sense that people of different cultures in one country are less likely to be harmonious..

So are you against Brits who live, work, and buy properties (like holiday homes) in other countries?

Or is that acceptable because "we're the Brits"?

[keldsyke]

Being 'a friend of Palestine' doesn't impute one's approval of Hamas. They are a terrorist organisation with evil aims, but let's face it Israeli behaviour of recent years, now compounded by the election of the evil Netanyahu, has asked for trouble.
Over 7,000 Palestinians have been murdered in the past 10 years compared with just over 300 Israelis.

Thanks for that Jeremy

[Newish Pie]

Wow Newish Pie, I think you are so wide of the mark with you ideas about people who voted to leave. I have not met one that fills your criteria.
Remainers seem determined to paint Leavers as ignorant racists, which sticks in the craw, and stems from afore mentioned arrogance and patronising attitude.
I guess the other EU countries have nothing to be ashamed about in their histories.
I wonder what you think of countries such as Hungary and Poland which are far more nationalistic than ourselves, and are far more unified as countries than we have been for a good while, due in the main to strict immigration policies.
I struggle to see what is so good about multiculturism, and what is so bad about nationalism. A sense of nationalism, does not make you racist. To me it makes sense that people of different cultures in one country are less likely to be harmonious.
We as Britons have every right to be proud of what we have achieved, even if it is the flavour of the month with elitists/luvvies to try and tear our country apart.

Did you actually read what I wrote? I know it's long and probably tedious and pedantic. As for my ideas about people who voted to leave... perhaps I am wide of the mark. I'm open to alternative explanations, and I'm always open to learning more.

But your ideas about Remainers and about what I think are wide of the mark.


Remainers seem determined to paint Leavers as ignorant racists, which sticks in the craw, and stems from afore mentioned arrogance and patronising attitude.

Nope. Never said that. Certainly true that nearly all racists vote to leave, but not everyone who voted to leave is a racist. I specifically said above that some people's sense of national superiority isn't racial, but cultural. And not everyone who voted leave believes in cultural superiority, either.

I guess the other EU countries have nothing to be ashamed about in their histories.

Er. No. Obviously not. Show me one that has nothing to be ashamed of.

I wonder what you think of countries such as Hungary and Poland which are far more nationalistic than ourselves, and are far more unified as countries than we have been for a good while, due in the main to strict immigration policies.

I'm not a fan of their hard right leaders or their attacks on the rule of law. But to be honest, I'm not an expert on the internal politics of either country. I'm dubious about their apparent levels of unity. And all I'll say is that serious people are worried about the future of democracy in those countries. Whether they're right or not, I can't say. Wouldn't want to live in either of those countries right now.

I struggle to see what is so good about multiculturism, and what is so bad about nationalism. A sense of nationalism, does not make you racist. To me it makes sense that people of different cultures in one country are less likely to be harmonious.

Perhaps - in the spirt of trying to understand what Leavers think - you can explain what you mean by "nationalism" and what you mean by "people of different cultures". Because both can be understood very differently.

Happy to tell you some of the things that are great about multiculturalism once we've got definitions straight. But I'll start with the food.

We as Britons have every right to be proud of what we have achieved, even if it is the flavour of the month with elitists/luvvies to try and tear our country apart.

No-one is trying to tear our country apart. We do have every right to be proud of what we have achieved, provided that we're also ashamed of the mistakes and the crimes we have committed as a country. Can't take the good without the bad. I mean, I get it... I don't like admitting that my country has been the bad guy. I get frustrated by it too sometimes, but there are two options... either face it head on, or bury heads in the sand and pretend none of the bad things ever happened.

[Magpies1959]

EP, I think that as long as the numbers of Brits living abroad are acceptable in those countries and they have settled legally then I see no problem, as generally, 'us Brits', emigrate to countries where they are happy to fit in with that country's rules and traditions, so living in harmony. This is obviously not the case with lots of people who choose this country for a better life, expecting us to change to their ways, and put pressure on our already struggling, health and education systems.
I do not like Brits who buy holiday homes in this country, as it is to the detriment of the local community.